After the civil unrest broke out in April in Nicaragua, we stayed in Costa Rica through the summer and I missed out on a few prime months at my favorite place in the world. For the last 8 years I have called Northern Nicaragua home, but since safety wasn’t assured we moved all our retreats to Costa Rica and that became “home”.

Our standard US trip had us traveling between So Cal and the PNW in August and September. I surfed a few times, but they were quick unfulfilling sessions. We hadn’t planned to stop back by Nicaragua on the way back to Central America at the start of the fall season, but since the unrest had calmed down and it was safe to travel, I spent way too much money on changing plane tickets and we stopped at our house in Nicaragua for a precious two weeks.

The swell wasn’t ideal, but I ate good food cooked in my own kitchen, did some strenuous beach runs, and surfed a lot of big hollow lumpy waves. I did get a few good ones and am feeling rested and recharged for the new season with Surf With Amigas.

After a terrible experience at Samatahiti Eco Resort in Rincon Puerto Rico, we attempted to leave several negative Trip Advisor reviews. However due to technicalities, the reviews were all deleted. This is our video review with an explanation of our experience attempting to run a retreat at Samatahiti. If you are considering staying at Samatahiti, please be advised the resort is not as described.

We get a mixture of levels on retreats usually, but it is not often that we have Amigas bringing their own shortboards and ready to pull into tubes. At a retreat at our Central Nicaragua location we had an Amiga named Cat who is a shredder. She was working on refining her turns and trying to learn to get barreled. One morning a few of the instructors took her out to a thumpy hollow beach break. While the surf wasn’t quite as good as they were hoping, it was still tons of fun on retreats usually, but it is not often that we have Amigas bringing their own shortboards and ready to pull into tubes.
Check out the Amigas site for more info. surfwithamigas.com

On my first day back at home in Northern Nicaragua after two months in the Pavones region of Costa Rica I was frothing on right handers. The waves were inconsistent, but every now and then a fun right popped up and allowed little tube rides. The photog @inwaterwetrust happened to be in the spot to capture this interesting perspective. It’s always great to see a shot after the session. Stoked!

Being a mama is amazing. Of course I surf fewer shorter sessions, but when I run in after an hour and a half to see this smiling face, it’s all good. We just spent two months in Costa Rica. Here are some highlights from our first week there.